This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Hey, Prairie Lakes, let's just, uh, get something out of the way, right up top here. Some of you are looking at my face and going, something is wrong. Um, like more than usual, like you have that thought, you know, but like, something is more wrong than normal and maybe it looks to you like I got punched in my left eye.

And then maybe you have the thought of like, yeah, I could see that coming. That is not what happened. Okay? I have had a sty in my left eye, so it's a little red, a little swollen. Um, and so this is one of the joys of being a pastor at Prairie Lakes is, is I get to share things like this with thousands of people.

Um, so it's great, right? Um, so keep all of your suggestions to yourself, but that's the deal. Good luck not thinking about this for the next 25 minutes, by the way. Alright, so anyways, there's, there's, there's that. Okay.

Um, we are so very glad that you are here, and we are gonna start, um, a little bit differently than, than normal. We're gonna start just with right into some scripture. Usually we like to provide some context or the series or blah, blah, blah or set up or whatever.

I just wanna throw some scripture up here and, and it's gonna be a bookend to our message. This is the only place we're gonna be this weekend. Um, but this is from first Corinthians two, and this is just one through five. We're gonna read it through twice together, okay?

We're gonna read it through twice together. Here we go. And so it was with me, brothers and sisters, when I came to you, I didn't come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling my message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power.

Okay, let's just read that together one more time, okay? Verse one. And so it was with me, brothers and sisters, when I came to you, I didn't come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God for a result, to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling my message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, both the demonstration of the spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power.

Okay? So listen, um, that was written by a man named Paul. He wrote it to churches in the city of Corinth where he started those churches and was with those people. And now he's writing to, and, uh, here's my encouragement to you, okay? If you have a bible, a bible app on your phone, you've brought a physical Bible, you grab one of the seats, whatever, go ahead and just find First Corinthians two and leave it open, okay?

And when you get bored with what I'm saying, read it, um, if we're gonna go back to it, um, at the end of our time together, all right? Hey, um, we are this weekend finishing up a series that we've been in for the last few weeks, um, a month actually a series that we've called.

We don't go to church anymore. And, uh, it's based on some, some data and some findings from this massive study all compiled into a book called The Great De Churching. A lot of us have kind of dove into that. Um, they also have a podcast that they did called As in Heaven.

Some of you have dove into that as well, but the Great de church. And here's what they mean by de-churched, okay? Here's the definition they provided. De-churched person is someone who used to go to church at least once a year, but now they, they go, or excuse me, someone who goes to church at least once a month, but now goes less than once per year.

And, and, and this phenomenon, this det churching phenomenon has been accelerating, especially in the last 25 years. Here's the stat. About 15% of American adults living today, 40 million people have effectively stopped going to church mostly in the last 25 years.

Um, that's the phenomenon. This is true across the board. It's true in every theological tradition. It's true here in our state, especially true here in our state. Okay? And, uh, the surveyors found that not everybody stopped going to church for the same reason.

Everybody had some, some different reasons, but there's kind of some main reasons we've examined. Three of those we're examined. The fourth and final one this weekend, and this is the most common reason, meaning it's the largest group of people.

Uh, the reason for them no longer going to church. Okay? Here, here it is, uh, 52%. So there's several groups, but over half surveyed, uh, 52% of de church people stopped going during the ages of 18 to 25. Okay? That's not surprising probably.

And they stopped going for primarily social reasons. Uh, for example, they didn't feel like they fit in. They had a bad experience. They didn't really have friends at church their age. They were just got busy. They comes to giving and spending their money or spending their time.

Church isn't high on the priority, travel, toys, whatever. Okay? Um, the surveyors called this massive group of people, cultural Christians, okay? And here's what they mean by that. Because many of their stated beliefs, as they ask them what they believe, their stated beliefs really fell outside of orthodox Christianity.

But they're still kind of okay with the label of Christian. For example, um, 53% of the people in this group, uh, 53% believe in heaven. So it's a coin flip, and you believe in a little heaven, eh, um, 40% of them believe in hell. Okay? So that's, again, kind of just even less than a corn flip.

Uh, 22% believe that the Bible is the literal word of God. Four out of five of 'em go, I don't know. Um, most, uh, disregard the reliability of the Bible as the standard for all matters of faith and practice that, you know, the Bible is, is book, is it, is it reliable?

Uh, I dunno, at least for this group. And then here's the most telling one, when, when they were asked if they believed that Jesus was the son of God, meaning, hey, Jesus is the way God sent him, he's the way to heaven. His death is resurrection.

And do you believe in that as Jesus' son of God? In that kind of way, only 1% said confidently that he was okay. So that's, that's this group of people. Now, um, there's a lot of diversity in this group. The, the, the, the study, the findings are kind of fascinating.

They, they didn't really fit neatly into, into like political categories, for example. They were all across the board there, um, um, or, or some of these other kind of cultural, if you think you kind of can fit them in a box, they don't really fit into a neat little box.

But there are a few things that all of them had in common, or most of them. And one of them was this, okay? More than any other de-churched group, cultural Christians identified their parents as playing a significant role in their decision to stop attending.

Okay? More than any other group, the parents, uh, played a pretty significant role, okay? And we're gonna unpack what that means. But before we do listen, and I, and I say this with, with all sincerity and seriousness, um, and a pastoral posture here, um, I know that as we talk about this, we're talking about some pretty sensitive things.

Um, I, I, I know that because here's what I know, I know for a fact that some of you have adult children who are no longer attending. And I know that it, it breaks your heart. And I know that the prayer that you pray every single day is for them to come back, to come back to church, to come back to Jesus.

You pray for them. You pray for their kids. If they've got kids, uh, you might even, you might even blame yourself in some kind of way for this. Okay? I know that. I know that. Um, so, so that being said, okay, and, and even so I, I do wanna explore this a little bit more deeply because, you know, there, all of this might not be true for you and your relationship with your kids or whatever, but some of it might be, and, and I think it's probably good for kind of all of us to know.

So, um, the surveyors did ask this group to unpack what they meant by that. Okay? Um, and so, um, the next slide I'm gonna show you are, are, are the, are the top 10 ways that these folks said their parents contributed.

If their parents did, how the parents contributed to them no longer attending. Okay? Here's, here's what they said about their parents. I said their parents, they seem to be mostly about a culture war. This whole church thing that they're a part of, it seems to be more of like a culture war than anything else.

We'll talk about that. Um, or maybe they, they, they lack love, gentleness, kindness and generosity. There's that kinda religious hypocrisy they go, but I don't see any sort of like real heart change. Um, this group will say, Hey, my, my parents have a faith that ended up kind of mostly being theirs.

Like, it just didn't really, really transfer. We weren't having a lot of authentic conversations about it. Um, maybe they're not good listening. Maybe, maybe, maybe this, this next generation kinda disagreed on some things, but kind of learned pretty quickly.

There's no room for that. Um, maybe they have racist attitudes. That's a thing. Um, they, maybe they stopped going themselves. Maybe parents as they grew up and they got a little bit more comfortable. They church wasn't as much of a priority as it was when we were younger.

And so what they modeled, they just kinda followed after, or that maybe they can't engage their viewpoints in good faith. Right? Um, maybe they're intolerant towards my views on gender. And this is what they talked about specifically.

Um, some of these are prickly now. Okay? Uh, this group said, Hey, my parents seem to intertwine their faith and their support of Trumpism and conservatism. Like, they're almost indistinguishable their politics. Their, they're kind of right-leaning politics, or they're more conservative politics and their faith.

I don't know the difference. And they don't seem to either. And then the last one is this. They seem more interested in securing political power than promoting salvation through Jesus. Okay? So that was, that was their top 10 reasons for if their parents contributed to them de churching.

Those are, those are how, all right? Now listen, I think we can untether that list from this parent adult child, Hedley. Okay? I don't think it's just true of that kind of relationship. I think people in this category, whether they were raised in the church or not, whether they had parents who raised them in the church or not, I think this is generally how they see the church period.

Okay? They, they, they see the church as unable to engage with the viewpoints of the church, disagrees with, okay? They, they see the church as maybe a, a, a political puppet. They, they, they see the church, um, as more interested in in political power.

They see the church in the previous light as not being able to listen. You know, this is generally how people in this category who used to go to church and no longer 'cause it's kinda how they see us. Alright? I think that's, I think that's true.

Um, Here's, here's a quote from the book that I think sums it up pretty clearly. If one generation bases their religious beliefs and practice on cultural issues, then when the next generation's culture departs from theirs, if the next generation disagrees on some of those issues, what happens is if the, if the religious beliefs are based on those issues, what it forces a religious rift as well.

Sadly, the church, the de-churched feel that their parents or their church just don't offer them and others the basic kindness of listening to different thoughts and opinions. Moreover, many reports seeing little evidence of the fruit of the spirit in their parents or their church people's lives.

Okay? Um, cultural issues. What, what are we, what are we talking about there? You know, what are the issues that that culture's kind of wrestling with at the forefront with today? What are they? Well, you could name 'em, right? Human sexuality, gender identity, what the state recognizes as marriage.

Um, the nature of the unborn, uh, the environment, the role the government plays in, uh, politics, um, racial relations, science and its role, and how we kind of see the world in ourselves, right? There's, there's a host of different cultural issues today. Um, What the authors are saying to us in the church is, is this, if we as the church build our platform form, or our message or our community on our stance on some of these issues, if that's the primary thing, then when people shift away from any one of them, they'll also shift away from the church as well.

That's what they're saying. Okay? I, I'm praying that I'm not losing you and I'm sincere about that. I'm doing that right now. If you, if you just give me the grace to continue, I need to take this one step further and deeper.

Some of this, Um, Categories, some of the folks in this group who are leaving for these kinds of reasons, okay? Some of them don't just leave the church. Um, an increasing amount of them leave the faith altogether. And there's a term for this kind of leaving.

It's a growing phenomena, actually. It's come to be known as deconstruction. Deconstruction. So here, here's what we mean by that. Okay? Deconstruction is this. It's the, it's the process of reexamining and or dismantling what I believe, because it seems like the foundations of what I believe are built on some faulty assumptions.

That's what deconstruction is. It's kinda like, I'm, I'm reexamining or I'm even dismantling what I believe because, man, it feels like all of this is based on some, some faulty assumptions. That's what it is. Okay?

Here, here's what deconstructing looks like, at least today. Um, maybe I was taught something as a kid about marriage, or I was taught something about sexuality in the church, and then as I grew up, I came to believe something differently about it. Um, or maybe I was just along for the ride with my parents whenever they would go.

Um, but then I kind of started having my own questions, Or maybe I was taught something about the origins of the earth or the authority of the Bible, and I never really questioned it until I grew up. But now maybe I'm not so sure and, or, or maybe I am sure. And I, and I just know that my perspective wouldn't be welcome.

Um, because when I started to ask or challenge or believe differently about some of these things, I wasn't, maybe I wasn't met with openness or a, or a dialogue. Um, but instead, maybe I was met with, Um, Surface level answers that weren't really answers at all.

Or maybe I was met with defensiveness or judgment or correction or rejection. And the deeper I tried to dig, the more cracks I seemed to uncover until the whole thing just kind of started to come crashing down around me. Uh, That's deconstruction.

And that's kind of sometimes what it looks like today for, for folks. And, and not everyone in the group, in this group does that. Okay? Um, some, some are very content to just not dismantle their faith, but instead put it away in a box and label it irrelevant, um, and just go on living life, you know?

But for others, the more that they ask, and the more that they examine, uh, the more it all seems to just kind of be a house of cards that that falls apart. Um, deconstruction's kind of terrifying, Uh, Because it's not, it's not just a person's faith that's being undone, but it's potentially like everything else that's attached to that faith.

Um, Things like their community or their families or their friendships or their tribe. You know, I don't know if you know anybody who has or is currently deconstructing, I don't know if you know anybody who is, but if you do, it can be terrifying.

Not just for that person, but it can be terrifying for you as well. Um, If you're watching your friend or your kid living under your roof, or your spouse or your child who's now an adult or someone you love and care about, if you watch him start this process of kind of reexamining and starting to even dismantle some things they used to believe, things that you still believe, belief, you know, if we were honest, their, their deconstruction can even feel to us like a betrayal.

Um, because it feels like they're not just rejecting some of the beliefs that you used to share, but they're kind of rejecting the things that you still believe and stand for, which means they're kind of rejecting You.

Um, my kids are almost 14 and 11, okay? Um, eighth grade and fifth grade. And for the last several months now, our family devotional rhythm at night, um, looks like each of them reading a passage from the Bible and, um, Uh, in their rooms as they're kind of getting ready for bed, okay?

Um, and then they come out into the living room and, and then they talk about, they talk about what they've read, uh, and then we pray, and then I wrestle 'em and tickle 'em and throw 'em around the room and send 'em to bed. Okay? It's pretty cool. But it it, for the, for the bible part, it's cool because either they come out and they, they demonstrate that they understand and they talk about it, you know, and that's just cool as a parent to like watch 'em talk about God's word in a way that like, oh, wow, the spirit's helping them understand this, you know, or it just gives us an opportunity, my wife and I, to, to, um, to answer questions about it and kind of interact and explain stuff, right?

And, and that really works at 14 and 11 works great at 14 and 11, but 14 isn't 18, and it's not 24, and it's not 34 her. I mean, how many of us see the world in our place in it the same today as we did in eighth grade? You know? And at some point, I know there's very high probability that, um, my kids won't see everything the same way as I see it, and that I'm teaching them to see it.

Now, I know that, um, because they'll start to become adults and they'll grow more independent. And now from under our authority and not just accepting everything that we say as, as the truth, they'll encounter different perspectives, uh, have different experiences.

They'll grow in their capacity to think for themselves dog on it. Um, and, uh, what's gonna happen if they see some things differently than I do or that we taught 'em? Um, what if one day they come home from ninth grade or 11th grade or sophomore year of college, or Happens That they fall in love with someone who's very different or move to a place that's very different.

You know, some of you're looking at me and going, like, it's not if it's when you know, you naive little fool. Fair enough? Okay, fair enough. You are probably right because some of, some of you have lived that, um, describing something that you've experienced.

Um, and some of you're living it right now, you know? And, and maybe on either side, maybe you're the one watching the deconstruction and maybe you're the one who's doing the deconstructing. I, Um, I don't know that I've ever really talked about what I'm about to talk about from the platform, but I, I know I have talked about it to more than a few of you just in one-on-one conversations.

Um, I, I've walked through a bit of this myself and, uh, in fact most of it was during my, ironically, maybe not so much, but, uh, during seminary time of pretty intense deconstruction for me, I, I, I grew up going to church, okay? That's my story. And I grew up in a church tradition that if we, if we threw that list of 10 things, most of 'em would be true about the church that I, church tradition that I grew up in.

Um, you know, cultural issues were always, always front and center, Always, You know, Jesus and the Bible were for sure, and that's one of the best things about how I got to grow up, okay? And, and it for that tradition too, um, but almost equal to those was everything else.

Uh, and, and, and I, I would say that I had a really personal, really genuine faith as even as a kid through all, all those years. And I experienced a significant renewal of that faith in college when God called me to vocational ministry.

But then I, I went to, I went to Denver Seminary, and, uh, I just got Walloped. I got exposed to all kinds of different questions and perspectives on things that I thought I knew the right answers to them.

And I thought I knew 'em for sure, and I thought that everybody knew 'em for sure, at least everybody who thought rightly thought about them in the way that I thought about them. I mean, I didn't even know there were options, you know? And I mean, there was what I believed, and then there was what, what people who were wrong believed.

And that was that, you know, my beliefs and biblical beliefs were one and the same. Turns out there's a lot of Jesus loving, Bible believing, um, smarter than me, more godly people than me who think differently than me. You know? I mean, who would've thought that?

But, but listen, when you've been taught your entire life that you have to believe exactly all of these things from Genesis to Revelation, okay? And that if you don't, you're out. Right? And then you're confronted with a group of people who, who don't think the same kind of way about all of those things.

They don't. And, and, and some of 'em have very good reasons for not, and you're confronted with that, you know, and then you look and then like lightning didn't strike 'em. In fact, they seem more loving and joyful and patient and kind and generous and self control than you are.

It might sound silly to you, But that, That shook me to my core, especially as someone who took out a large loan, chose a career path and a spouse that was all predicated on me kind of knowing what I believed, right?

It's kind of important for my position. Okay? 'cause if you were wrong about some of these things that you were taught and that you thought you knew for sure, and you had to admit that you might be wrong about some of those things, what else were you wrong about? What else is? Sure. You know, still to this day, some of the most intense and weighty arguments I have had with my then girlfriend, turned fiance, now wife, some of the most intense arguments I had with her were about things I thought I knew for sure, but that I was starting to doubt, or I was starting to question and what all that meant.

I, Of course now where I'm standing, looking back, I can see really clearly just how present and presiding God really was in this deconstructing process of mine. Um, 'cause as I was examining and, and then reexamining a lot of those things that I've been taught my whole life, and as I was forced to kind of admit that I just, I just had accepted some of them blindly because I had been taught what to think from a specific Christian tradition rather than how to think Christianly.

What I was finding was, and this is where God was super present, what I was finding was that my faith, my faith didn't rest on what I believed about. All of the things on my faith rested on what I believed about.

One thing. One, Remember that passage we opened up with from the beginning, right? And so it was with me, brothers and sisters, when I came to you, I didn't come with eloquence or human wisdom.

I said, proclaimed you the testimony about God for our result, to know nothing except this one thing. I result to know nothing with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling, not, not a bunch of arrogance about what I know about all of the truths.

Nope. Weakness with great fear and trembling. 'cause my message in my preaching we're not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power, which comes from knowing this Jesus. So that your faith might not rest on what I'm saying about Genesis to Revelation, but on what?

But on God's power. Now, listen, this is from first Corinthians. It's the second chapter. It's almost from the very beginning. And if you were to read the rest of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, and then you moved on to the second letter that he wrote, and then you realize that in those letters, he mentions another letter that he wrote that we've lost to history.

Okay? Here's what you would see in this great body of, of work that he's written to the Corinthians. You'd see him talk about things like sex. You'd see him talk about things like men and women. You'd see him talk about things like division. You see him talk about things like marriage.

You see him talk about things like the end times, okay? And he has the Bible. God has a lot to say about all of those other things, okay? He does. But none of those things were, the thing for Paul, they weren't the core, they weren't the foundation.

They weren't his messaging. The only thing that mattered, the only thing that mattered to Paul for the Corinthians was Jesus. And what people believed about him. Why he came, why he died, that he was resurrected, And what that means for you.

He tells us that he resolved to know nothing meaning before and precluding everything else, nothing but Jesus. Listen, okay. If you're deconstructing, some of you are, or if you're wrestling with someone who is doing that, and some of you are you, you know someone who is okay if, if you're in either of those camps, listen, the only fight we wanna, the only fight we want to have isn't with you.

It's for you. It Called to believe in what Jesus did for you and how God's spirit will use that belief to change you. Nothing else. That's it. If, if, if I were to say the same thing to you, but use cultural war language.

Here's what I would say. Jesus's message is not repent and believe in young earth. Creationism Jesus' message isn't repent and believe in traditional marriage. It's not his message. His message isn't repent and believe in a political party or a rapture or a particular view on human sexuality.

Now, listen, I believe God's word has very clear things to say about all of those things, okay? But I don't think God is trying to win you to any of those things. I don't think Jesus is trying to win you to a cause or a doctrine, or a stance or a truth, even.

I think Jesus is trying to win you from the power that sin has over your life and destiny from the gap that it's created between you and God. I think he's trying to save you from this mentality that you can kind of save yourself.

'cause you can't. And I think he wants you to know that he's the only one who can touch and heal And restore your heart, not because of anything you've done, because of what he's done for you. Here's the thing, okay? When you experience Jesus's power to win your heart, you'll rest from trying to win over anyone to anything else.

I I believe that's true. When you experience Jesus' power to win your heart, you're gonna rest from trying to win anyone to anything else. Only Jesus. Which means, okay, if you're praying for people to change their mind about some of these issues, I, I get that.

But I want to invite you to start praying for Jesus to change their heart. Okay? Here, real quick, and, and take a picture of this slide. 'cause we're gonna go zoom through it and pray and get, get outta here.

If you're kind of going, gimme some tools, kind of like relate to people like, Hey, I'm, I'm not deconstructing, but I, I I, I wanna do this a little bit better with someone who is, Here's the list, okay? You, you, you do have to start by acknowledging kind of how you or the church is probably perceived.

And, and that's, that takes some humility, but we should be known for our humility. So this shouldn't be a hard thing for us, okay? Whether it's true of you or not, just you gotta know that this is how, how you proceed, number one.

Number two, folks probably here are not gonna say yes to an invite to church, but they might say an invite to back porch or out for, for a beer or a coffee, right? I mean, invite 'em into your life before, before you invite 'em to church.

They just need to see that you have a different kind of heart and mentality. Number three, we say this all the time. Quick, slow, slow from James, quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry, right? Four, um, be prepared. This is from one Timothy. Three.

Be prepared to give a reasons. We, we, we want to share the truth for sure. We want to, we wanna be open about what we believe on some of these things, right? Whether they agree or not, okay, it's fine. But anytime you share that, do it with gentleness and respect.

Do that with gentleness and respect. You might get judged, that's fine, but not for how you say it. Okay? And then the last one is this. We say this all the time. A hundred percent truth, a hundred percent grace, a hundred percent truth, a hundred percent grace.

We're not gonna move the boundaries on things that we believe Bible says about marriage or sex or whatever the hot button issue is. We're not gonna move the boundaries a hundred percent truth, but, but a hundred percent grace, okay? And if we're gonna err one way or the other, we're gonna lean towards grace.

Okay? Snap a picture of that. Let me pray for you. Okay? Father in heaven, thanks for this series. How challenging it is. Continue to make us more like your Son Jesus. God protect us from this tendency. We have to make something else. The the thing.

Help us to fight one battle and one battle only. And Jesus, thank you for winning the most important one for it's in your name. We pray all of this. Amen.